IBM launched Cognos 10 at it’s Las Vegas IOD event yesterday.  Rob Ashe led an upbeat presentation that included a panel interview with the first live customer, Boeing Industries.   The product has been 6 years in development and addresses many of the key demands of today’s information consumer.

The key features include:

• Business Insight.  New consumer interface, combines historical, real-time & predictive output
• Active reports – online and offline interactive dashboards
• Collaboration and social networking, annotation to cell level and decision work flow
• Cognos Mobile compatible with iphone, ipad, symbian, Windows Mobile and Blackberry
• Query performance 3 x faster than Cognos 8
• SPPS Modeller and Statistics integrated
• Integration of TM1 – scenario analysis and planning
• Upgrade “seamless” – new management tools enable a step by step approach to report migration

View this demonstation to gain a fuller perspective – Cognos 10

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (formerly known as the Carbon Reduction Commitment) is the UK’s mandatory climate change and energy saving scheme, that started in April 2010. 

It is central to the UK’s strategy for improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. It has been designed to raise awareness in large organisations, especially at senior level, and encourage changes in behaviour and infrastructure.

It will operate as a ‘cap and trade’ mechanism, providing a financial incentive to reduce energy use by putting a price on carbon emissions from energy use. In CRC, organisations buy allowances equal to their annual emissions. The overall emissions reduction target is achieved by placing a ‘cap’ on the total allowances available to each group of CRC participants. Within that overall limit, individual organisations can determine the most cost-effective way to reduce their emissions. This could be through buying extra allowances or investing in ways to decrease the number of allowances they need to buy.

All the money raised through the allowances will be recycled back to participants, according to how well they perform. The scheme features an annual performance league table that ranks participants on energy efficiency performance. Together with the financial and reputational considerations, the scheme encourages organisations to develop energy management strategies that promote a better understanding of energy usage.

The scheme is designed to tackle CO2 emissions not already covered by Climate Change Agreements and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The scheme will cover large public and private sector organisations, who are responsible for about 10 percent of the UK’s emissions. This will affect around 20,000 organisations and yours could be one of them.

Organisations are eligible for CRC if they (and their subsidiaries) have at least one half-hourly electricity meter (HHM) settled on the half-hourly market. They also qualify if their total half-hourly electricity consumption exceeded 6,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) during 2008. This is equivalent to total half hourly electricity bills of approximately £500,000 per year. While the scheme officially started in April 2010, many organisations will not have made preparations to ensure that they comply with all legal requirements and fully participate in it.

Furthermore, as the CRC is a carbon trading scheme, there will be a requirement to purchase allowances for the CO2 emitted – initially at £12 a tonne. An ability to accurately estimate future emissions and reduce them will have significant financial and reputational benefits – there will be heavy financial penalties for non-compliance and a publicised league table of performance.

Initially, it is estimated around 20,000 organisations will qualify, including supermarkets, water companies, banks, local authorities and all central Government Departments. Qualifying organisations will have to comply legally with the scheme or face financial and other penalties.

Website for Department of Climate Change – http://www.decc.gov.uk/

Source DECC 2010

Whitebridge Group is a GRI Organisational Stakeholder Read about our Environmental Reporting solution.

Organisations are finding an ever increasing need for a proactive approach when it comes to building delivery teams for CPM initiatives. At Whitebridge we have devised a model which allows customers to tap into the WB Associates network giving them control. Rather than working with a supplier who works reactively, Whitebridge are able to proactively give the client control of their resource planning against their pipelined demand.

Too often when requiring tactical or strategic external subject matter expertise organisations find themselves restricted to working with suppliers who have a reactive approach, often proving damaging to project timescales and deliverables. The usual options are; to either work with a consultancy where their key performance measure is based on utilising an internal bench, where too often profitability takes priority over best fit for the job in hand,  or the recruitment company that taps into the wider independent skills market by posting job requirements or searching cv databases, this reactive approach to securing the expertise required can often prove detrimental to the end customer.

At Whitebridge we have taken the opportunity to build a model which acts as an extension of the WB Associates network.   This model which allows, with careful proactive planning, an organisation to have a view of not only the availability of the required consultants months in advance, but also the ability to match this with their project pipeline.

By ensuring the correct independent consultants are being tracked to match “potential” customer project timelines Whitebridge is able to offer a scalable model which can:

Track and blend expertise – blend, if required, Whitebridge Consulting capability with WB Associates (we are able to offer either types of support dependent on demand)

Scalability – the control of the WB Associates supply chain is under the direction of the client

Diversity of skills – WB Associates allows for cross skills coverage and growth of resources in key niche areas  

Retention of knowledge  – the model allows our clients to know at any point when a consultant is available to support them and allow for use of their retained knowledge

Visibility – regular visibility of consultant availability broken down into a skills matrix to match project demand  

Key to the success of this model is Whitebridge developing a deep understanding of the consultants required from a technical, commercial and cultural perspective. Added to this Whitebridge’s effectiveness is enhanced by an advanced view on potential project demand. The focus on pipeline demand is beneficial to all parties as it allows for resource planning against potential as well as actual projects.

The model we have created is the culmination of years of working closely with key customers, and when deployed correctly we have found that it acts as a cornerstone to project planning allowing for the customer to gain control of their future CPM delivery demand.

Please contact us for further information

» Solutions

An increasing number of companies are turning to software applications to perform consolidated financial reporting, forming the basis of the figures provided for an audit. One of the major products in the financial consolidation space is IBM Cognos Controller, formerly Frango.

The WB Partner Network has considerable experience of the IBM Cognos Controller application having been involved in the design, implementation and development at numerous companies throughout UK and Europe. Our consultants are not only accredited by IBM, they are all financially qualified and most have worked as auditors for one of the large audit companies. We therefore have an appreciation of the objectives of the auditing process.

Over the past year we have had first hand experience of the auditors role and processes where IBM Cognos Controller forms the basis for the reported figures. In some cases it is the auditors themselves who have strongly recommended the application to the client. Our experience is that, in every case, the application itself and the questions asked were completely different not only between audit firms but also from different auditors and offices from the same audit firm.

Whilst IBM Cognos Controller is a configurable application, the fundamentals of design and control functionality within the application are such that these remain constant from one company to the next.

Based on the above, it is our firm belief that there is a standard audit approach that could be designed and adopted where a company uses IBM Cognos Controller as the financial consolidation application. This audit approach, once designed, documented and trained, could then be used as a blue-print for all audits where IBM Cognos Controller is in place. In our opinion the benefits of this approach to the client as well as the audit firm would be significant and include:

·         A standard approach reducing risk to the auditor

·         The blue-print would highlight areas of risk where further audit work is required

·         This would also provide high quality audit points to be raised with the client as a value add

·         Audit time could be reduced and work concentrated on areas of risk

·         The clients perception of the audit process would be significantly raised

Please contact us for further information

» Solutions

As part of a service-led reporting solution, the Sustainability Reporting approach can provide analysis of quantitative KPIs across Economic, Environmental and Social realms as defined in the Global Reporting Initiative G3 framework. For example, the Environmental realm includes indicators for:

Materials

Energy

Water

Biodiversity

Emissions, Effluents and Waste

Products and Services

Compliance

Transport

We have access to templates for many of these including Direct and Indirect Energy Consumption by Primary Energy Source, Total Direct and Indirect Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Weight and Total Water Withdrawal by Source.

Indicators are included in the solution according to the requirements of the customer.

We offer a prototyping service to get an organisation up and running with an important KPI for an agreed sub-division. For example, if an organisation can supply actual water volume meter readings by site, source, date and time for an agreed set of sites and date range together with budget levels, a prototype water management capability can be built in 5 days.

We also offer a service-led approach to reporting and analysing data for compliance with the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme which has been introduced as of April 2010.

As with Sustainability Reporting, we offer a 5 day prototyping capability to analyse data for an agreed subset of your organisation for a defined time period. If electricity and/or gas meter readings can be provided in a Comma Separated Value or other flat file format with actual consumption by site, site type, meter, energy type, energy supplier, date and time together with budget levels then a model can be built to track actual consumption and CO₂ production against expected. This will quickly show up any areas where actual performance exceeds expectation and enable corrective action to be taken.  The prototype can then be scaled up to cover the whole organisation.

Both approaches are technology agnostic so can be implemented in any RDBMS e.g. MS Server 2005, Oracle and BI tools such as Microsoft Analysis Services, IBM Cognos 8.

Please contact us for further information

» Solutions

Whitebridge is proud to announce its business partner status with IBM.   Achieving partner status provides access to information and resources to complement the services and solutions we provide.

We have an extensive relationship with IBM based on a succesful partnership built over a number of years by the founders of Whitebridge with Cognos. Our relationship is focused on IBM Software Group, in particular Information Management. Although we do not resell IBM products, our goal is to help organisations to realise a successful return on their investments through the delivery of services and solutions.

In roles at former companies the founders of Whitebridge have supported IBM owned engagements with services delivered by principal and senior consultant expertise.  

Examples of past customer site successes where the founders and members of the Whitebridge Partner Network worked in conjunction with IBM include;

Agusta Westland, AIB, AIG, ANovo, BAA, BAE, Balfour Beatty, Bank of Ireland, Barclays, Boehringer, British Energy, Combined Insurance, Compass, Covidien, DHL, Fujitsu, G4S, Gamesys, Gilead, GSK, Infinis, John Willey, KBC, Nielsen Media, Nottingham Building Society, Nottingham University, Novartis, Omnicom, PIC, Pfizer, Premier Foods, Provident, Quintiles, RBS, RL Polk, Ricoh, Rolls Royce, Sheffield University, SITA, SSE, TUI, Ulster Bank, University of Ulster, Unite, Visa,

 Although the headlines have moved away from daily prophesies of doom and gloom and are making some reference to ‘green shoots of recovery’, organisations are still looking for ways to reduce their budgets.  However, major spending cutbacks are potentially false economy for many business technology services, not least the new generation of business intelligence (BI) tools.

Sales may slow down when finances are tough, but they do not stop altogether – which means that there are more people fighting for a piece of a smaller pie.  Therefore, when budgets are tight, an organisation’s competitive edge is more critical than ever.  That means its management team needs complete visibility of everything happening across all functions so that it can make informed choices.  In the current climate, the business-critical nature of these decisions is heightened because they determine the ongoing success, or potential failure, of the company.  BI uses data generated on an ongoing basis, which in turn affords better understanding of operations so that processes can be fine-tuned to maximise both efficiency and sales.

Very simply, the more in-depth the understanding of the business, the more easily it can be re-engineered for competitive edge.  This is achieved through extensive analysis of business data, which in turn requires powerful BI tools.

Business Intelligence 2.0

An accurate picture of the business at any given moment also requires access to information in real-time, which is enabled by the technical architecture, ‘Business Intelligence 2.0′.

An increasing amount is being written about BI 2.0, and it also has its own entry in Wikipedia.  But the key to deploying it successfully is to avoid putting too much emphasis on the IT element of the popular term.  BI 2.0 has been coined as a buzzword to refer to the instant access that decision-makers have to data.  And, like the various other  Web 2.0 technologies, BI 2.0 reflects the increased interactivity and ease-of-use it offers. 

The business benefits of BI (2.0)

So what benefits will be reaped by organisations that invest budget and resources in BI 2.0?  At a topline level, BI is a tool that helps to identify profitable customers and ways to retain them, as well as streamline operating costs.

More specifically, from a perspective of making money, BI enables businesses to identify the products, services and sales channels that drive its revenue.  Customers can be ranked by their profitability, and this can be broken down further by factors such as geographical location and the channel to market to which they respond.

Visibility of this magnitude enables a company to make informed choices.  For example, high-value customers can be specifically targeted in promotional campaigns, leading to better returns on marketing investment.  At the same time, low-value customers can be encouraged to increase their spend, or the company can decrease their activity to retain them.

In addition, product promotions can be analysed and therefore ranked in terms of what made them successful, in order that effective tactics can be repeated.  Monitoring key satisfaction indicators, such as product service and quality and the timeliness and accuracy of deliveries, can flag up potential customer relationship issues before they become a profit-draining problem.  This helps to keep valuable customers on board.

Data this detailed is also invaluable to companies that provide services to third party organisations.  For example, marketing agencies can offer their customers in-depth information on every element of each promotional campaign – such as which leaflet or advertisement generated the most sales.  Monitoring and sharing the effectiveness of marketing activity in this way is a ‘value-add’ service with the potential to give the agency competitive edge.  Combined with real-time data feeds, it also puts the end-user in the driving seat, enabling them to alter pricing, increase stock holding or amend advertising campaigns as required.

At the other end of the scale, BI is also an effective way for enterprises to maximise revenue by controlling costs, enabling them to analyse efficiencies by factors such as product, supplier and region.  The impact of energy price rises for example can be monitored, so that manufacturing and transport costs can be regulated.   Equally, the overall cost-benefit of using a lower cost supplier but getting a higher rate of defective products can be explored in detail, and an informed decision made on whether this strategy is the best to pursue.

They say the only two certain things in life are death and taxes. Speak to today’s business leaders and they’ll ruefully add a third: compliance.

“Compliance” is of course a catch-all that refers to a number of both long-standing financial and regulatory arrangements and a seeming endless raft of new pieces of legislation recently introduced to both European and US organisations in short order. No-one in today’s enterprise will need to be told too much more about Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Basel II, MiFID, as well as older strictures like the Data Protection Act.

Knowing about these things is part of the story – the trick is to handle them effectively, indeed to the level of meeting your compliance targets being part of making your business operate even more efficiently. But we have run into many instances of organisations that have struggled so to do. Why?

The pattern that seems to be emerging is that an attempt is made to try and get formal, consistent top-down control of existing processes. While admirable in its scope – let’s solve the problem as globally and transparently as possible – this approach is often bedevilled by challenges such as multiple ways of handling and storing data, differing data formats, even consistent use of data across the organisation.

What might be better is to not add another layer of IT and management here, but to better exploit existing resources. Step forward what may already be well-established and is a ready-made tool: the organisational data warehouse.

It may at first seem a surprising idea, but once it’s brought into mind that this central resource already links in a global fashion many disparate but vital business processes and systems. This is due to the fact that it needs to act as the storekeeper for the organisation’s important data anyway – and if it a mission-critical resource it will already be operated using rigorous data control procedures anyway.

Put it another way – we have worked with organisations that have adopted such an approach and have seen their outlay on their compliance efforts drop by as much as half. Such savings are achievable because in-house skills can be more easily accessed, there is no need to develop totally new controls, and frankly, an externally sourced tool from the market – the so-called idea of ‘SOX in a box’ – is very likely to add little value to this process. The net result is an efficient and cost-beneficial way of better meeting data compliance targets.

There are caveats: the data warehouse in question must be mission-critical, as in it must be involved with real operational or trading systems, it must be run on highly defensible control lines already, and the organisation should have the technical skills in place to run it. Working with our experts should be able to quickly determine if your compliance issue could also be so neatly dealt with. The death and taxes, we’re afraid, you’ll have to deal with yourselves.